Thieves and Shields
by VampirePenguins
Summary: How long does it take a person to actually take the time to know the other? How can a person care about someone this much while worrying about the threatened murder that taunts the people around him? But most of all, how can a person admit their feelings without other things getting in the way? Percy learns this and does his best to avoid it. And being him, it never works.


**A/N: Guess who's here with the prequel? That's right! I am! I cannot describe how happy I am to post this. But I am sad to say that my updating schedule for this story will not be fixed until my other story "Rough All Over" is finished. Until then, I hope you enjoy surprise updates, even if it may be a little late.**

**If you haven't already read "Masks and Cops" which was the first part before this, then I recommend you should. It doesn't really matter if you do or do not because this is a prequel, so there really shouldn't be any spoilers in here. But I might explain stuff that wasn't really said in "Masks and Cops" and there is a high chance that you're going to be having an "aha" or "oh, so that's what happened!" or whatever you want to call it, I don't really care. Either way, whether you choose to read the original or not, both ways work fine.**

**The POVs will be alternating just like in the original part; from Percy to Annabeth. But the chapter after this is going to be still in Percy's, since this chapter kinda leaves you in a cliffhanger and I need to explain it. But after that, it should be back to normal. Sometimes there might be some guest POV, but don't really count on it.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson characters at all.**

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Thinking back on it, he probably shouldn't have freaked her out so much about it. It was just a simple suggestion, really. And he didn't even know her _name _yet. All he knew about her was that she was loud (at least by the way she was screaming so much), was terrified of eight-legged crawlers ranging from a geometric point to a bulging tarantula, and completely out of her head and sane mind. Some angry, uncontrolled, blond freak.

A _hot _angry, uncontrolled, blond freak. But he thought it was best not to ponder over that too much. After all, he couldn't even appreciate her looks for that long because she went straight back to yelling before he could let his eyes roam more properly.

He looked over to the jar/glass cage he had accidentally opened, the one filled with the spiders, and wondered why in the living hell he happened to trip over it for it to crack open. Then maybe he wouldn't be dragged into a closet by the frantic female teenager in such a tight space...okay, that wasn't really the bad part, and Percy knew it. But if he had to choose to stay in the closet with the girl screaming in his ears until his eardrums popped, or out in the open with her being a little bit more _quieter_, then he would pick the latter without a second's hesitation.

"...And so tell me _why _I had the wonderful fortune of meeting _you_, please?" she seemed to have finally finished her rant, her face exhausted and tomato red from yelling so much.

Percy had been quiet the entire time. He had tried retorting back a couple of times, but this girl was probably even more stubborn than he was. And right now, it wasn't something he should be celebrating for. He didn't even know how his week had gotten so bad. One day he was waking up like he cared about nothing and everything at the same time, and now he had to deal with _this_.

This girl. Little Blondie over here.

This entire mess had all started the previous week, exactly eight days before, on a Tuesday.

He remembered that he ate breakfast with his friend Jason Grace that day. And they were talking about the most useless thing in the world, now that he thought of it. They were talking about girls. More specifically, _Jason's _girls. Now Jason wasn't a player; he thought players were sick and heartless, which was ironic considering that one of his close friends was. But he had been going through a really weird time. He _still _was going through that weird time.

All he had been doing, was going out with a bunch of girls, not caring what they felt or how they felt about it. Not a player, according to Jason's definition. Right.

And that bothered Percy, it really did. He didn't like seeing Jason like that, jumping from one girl to the next, like some type of toy. It wasn't him. But ever since his mother and father died in that car wreck three months before, leaving with no one to look out for him except his older sister Thalia Grace...well, he could really care less about what was him and what wasn't.

True, Percy was a player. A major douche-bag. He knew it, but he was okay with it. He already had that reputation. Jason didn't. All Percy could hope for was that he got over this slacking phase. But eight days ago, he thought a little differently.

"So wait...did she dump you, or did you dump her?" he asked, laughing over another break-up from Jason's side, somewhat spilling his milk over his cereal bowl.

"She dumped me," he said in a completely monotone voice, himself wrecking havoc on Percy's breakfast table.

"And how do you feel about it?"

He just shrugged. "I don't really care."

"But I thought that she was 'the one'," Percy teased him.

"You wish," Jason only snorted. "I told you I really don't care. Drew was a bitch anyway. I'm _glad _that it's over."

And he knew that it was true because Jason literally had looked like a heavy, large weight had been removed from his shoulders. Honestly, this was one of his happy days. It was _always_ a happy day for him whenever he broke up with a girl that he cared less about. It was always the same reaction. He gave him a disbelieving shake of the head, looking at him in awe, "can you ever last with a girl more than two weeks?"

Jason frowned, looking like he was actually thinking about it. "I can't say that I have, no. But you're not the one to talk. You haven't been committed to anybody since...well, you've never been committed to anybody period. So we're both equals in this matter."

He nodded, signaling a silent truce had been made. "Fine. You win. This time." Jason looked down to his phone and typed something in. "What's going on?"

"Reyna. She wants to meet us," he said, looking up and shoving his phone down his front pocket.

He smirked at him. "More like she wants to meet _you_."

Jason blankly stared at him. "I don't get it."

He simply groaned back. "Reyna has Bambi eyes for you, man. Don't you see? I don't get why you're spending time with these crappy girls when you have someone actually worth dating."

He shook his head. "No. Enough of this conversation. I'm not going to hurt Reyna like that."

"You're hurting her enough by dating random girls. She'll think you don't care about her."

"I don't. Not like that, I mean. I don't want to date her."

"She'll be hurt," Percy said.

"No. Reyna's tough. She'll be fine," he told him.

He only shrugged. "All tough girls have a breaking point, man. There has to be _some _weakness in them. Or else they'd be too good to be true."

Jason raised his eyebrow. "Are you implying that I'm her weakness?"

"I'm not implying it. I'm _saying_ it."

He shook his head again. "She'll be fine. I don't_ like-like _her. I want you to get over this."

"I just want you to be happy, man. If anybody deserves it, it's you."

"Thanks, but I'm okay. I'll be fine, and she'll be fine," he repeated.

"Okay..." Percy said, unsure. "Is it just Reyna, or...?"

"It's Leo, too. I think they're getting worried about the whole Calypso issue or whatever."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I think Calypso's dating Will Solace-you know, that football player? Leo's freaking out, but personally, I don't think they're going to last a week."

"Did you tell Leo about your opinion?"

"Would it help?"

Percy chuckled in answer. Once they reached Leo and Reyna, it had turned out that Jason was right; the whole reason why Reyna had called them over was because of Leo and Calypso. They had spent half an hour discussing ways to either bring Leo and Calypso closer together, ways to make Will sick and make it seem like an accident, and a bunch of other crazy stuff that only Leo and Reyna cared about. Jason and him were only there because they had nothing better to do.

Eventually, Reyna had left because her sister needed her for something, and Leo finally began to shut up about Calypso. They had been watching TV for a while, absentmindedly flipping through the channels, when Percy had gotten a text from his mother that read: _Come home. I'm making steak, and your dad's coming soon. Can you pick up some eggs on the way? We're running out._

He smiled after reading that text. He barely got to see his father nowadays. His parents had divorced when he was younger, and the only reason why his father came back to Long Island anymore, was because of him. He saw him every three months or so, and he tried his best to make the most of it.

So he waved off a quick goodbye to a half-asleep Jason and a wide-eyed Leo.

Leo lived so close to his home, that he didn't even need to drive to reach him. He was literally a street across from Percy. But since his mother told him to get supplies from the grocery store, he had to go back to get his car in order to do so.

After a ten minute long drive, a five minute long nerve-wracking argument with the cashier and the customer in front of him about who's chili sauce tasted better, he was finally out in the open at seven PM. It was a Tuesday, so not a lot of people were there in the parking lot at the time when Percy heard the shrill, almost ear-splitting scream from behind the stranded grocery store.

The people around him, like Percy, had noticed but hopped into their car and drove away quickly, immediately suspecting that there was a robbery or something weird had happened. But unlike them, he didn't even glance at his car after he heard the scream.

And had Percy mentioned he was stubborn? Well, he was stubborn as hell.

Because he followed the sound. And if he hadn't, then he wouldn't have met that red-headed green-eyed girl. He wouldn't have been having to worry about this murder-shit case that had almost everything to do with that very girl. He wouldn't have to worry about any of it and could have went back to caring about nothing but Jason and Leo's love life.

But most of all, he wouldn't have been caring about _his_ and that stupid blond girl that was still cramped in the closet with him.

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**A/N: Yes, I'll admit, the ending to this was very vague, but the next chapter will be a continuation about what happens to Percy after he hears the scream. I won't just skip to the closet part that I know all of you Percabeth fans out there want to read. You guys need to know background information about what happened with the scream, because if you see, the second genre to this is drama, not just romance, though it will definitely include a lot of that.**

**Hope you like this and review! I appreciate it a lot! Thanks for reading!**

**Till next time,**

**Penguin**


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